“Are you going to talk to the schoolmaster?” I asked, following him outside.
“Yes,” he said, mounting Donar.
“But I want to come, too. It was my notion to speak to him in the first place.” I tried, and failed, to keep the outrage I felt out of my voice. What happened to our team, to me and Brom fighting the darkness that threatened our town?
Brom glanced behind me before answering, as if seeking support from Katrina, but she had not followed us out.
“I don’t think it’s safe for you in the village just yet. Rumors were thick in the air yesterday, and Katrina was able to do less to quell them than she hoped. It was strange, really. Even some of the people I’d normally consider less credulous appeared to believe.”
A chill ran over my skin though I stood in a patch of sun. “It’s not strange. It’s that thing in the forest. Whatever infected Janssen, infected Smit, is passing from person to person like a sickness.” Perhaps the people of the Hollow weren’t quite so ignorant—nor innocent—as I’d hoped.
But I still didn’t understand why. Why was the darkness of the wood suddenly spreading? Why did the creature in the woods seem to be circling around me, coming ever closer? Was it because the Horseman had marked me? Or because I’d seen it attacking Justus? Was it some curse of Schuler de Jaager’s? I ground my teeth. There was something I was missing. No matter how I tried I couldn’t see the whole picture. And now Brom wanted to leave me out of it, have me sit at home and embroider while he went out hunting for clues.
“If evil is spreading like a sickness then that’s all the more reason for you to stay at home,” Brom said. “You’re the one who believes Henrik Janssen wasn’t responsible for his actions last night.”
“I didn’t say that. I mean, not completely responsible,” I said. “I don’t think I explained properly.”
“You explained plenty, and if I see him I’m not going to feel guilty about any damage that might be done to his person,” Brom said. “Whatever is happening seems to revolve around you, and I don’t want you in the middle of it. I can’t defend you from an entire village of angry folk. You’ll stay here, where you’re safe.”
He tapped his heels lightly against Donar’s sides and the horse broke into a trot. I went after them, running until I caught up and could jog alongside. This was my investigation and it wasn’t fair for Brom to go off without me. Besides, he hadn’t seen what I’d seen. He didn’t know what I knew.
“But Opa,” I said. “If I go with you I can talk to the other children while you speak with the schoolmaster.”
Brom scowled. “I said no, Ben. Stop acting like a child.”
That stung, but it made me realize what really bothered me about Brom’s refusal. After all, he could be in just as much danger as me—he was my grandfather, and people might decide he was guilty of something just for that. Yet off he went, blithely taking his horse to the village.
“You want me to stay home because you think I’m a girl, not a boy,” I said, and I couldn’t keep the disgust out of my voice. “You think I’m not capable. You think I can’t defend myself.”
“How can I have lived with your grandmother for thirty-two years and believe such foolishness? Of course it’s not because you’re a girl.”
But his eyes cut away and I knew for certain that was the real reason, no matter what he said. And it hurt me, hurt me in a place I didn’t know I could be hurt, for Brom had always treated me like his boy, and defended me when Katrina said I ought to act more like a lady. Brom wasn’t supposed to be the one to think of me as lesser, as weak, as someone who needed defending. Brom was supposed to know who I really was.
I’d followed him all the way down to the road, where the woods ran alongside until the road reached the village. Brom glanced uneasily at the shadows shifting between the trees and said, “Go back to the house now, Ben. I expect to find you there when I get home.”
Brom never spoke to me that way, never ordered me to do things I didn’t want to do. I opened my mouth, ready to argue, to protest the deep unfairness of everything. But before I could say a word he kicked Donar into a gallop and left me behind with a face full of dust.
I swiped at my eyes and stared after him, half of me wanting to run after him just to prove he couldn’t stop me if I really wanted to do something. I recognized this as childish, realized it would only undermine the trust I wanted him to have in me, and kicked a large stone in frustration.
I saw Katrina standing on the front porch, gazing anxiously down the drive after me. I waved so she would know I was on my way back to her.
It happened so suddenly that in the moment I didn’t really grasp what had occurred. One second I was waving at Katrina, moving back toward the house, and the next second there was darkness, a hoarse triumphant laugh, the smell and taste of burlap, and strong arms carrying me away.
My first thought was that it was Henrik Janssen, still in the grip of whatever madness had possessed him the night before. I had an inkling of what that madness intended for me, and I kicked and elbowed and did anything I could to shake myself loose.
The man only squeezed me tighter and said, “Quit that, you little bitch.” The voice wasn’t Henrik Janssen’s. It was Diederick Smit.
I knew then exactly where he was taking me, and why. He was holding me in front of him, his arms around my waist, and I drummed my boot heels into his shins. He cursed and clouted me on the side of the head. I thought I heard Katrina’s voice calling me.
She’d seen everything. She had to have done. I’d been looking right at her, waving, so she would have seen Diederick Smit drag me into the woods. She’d raise the alarm. She would get Brom. Someone would find me before it was too late.
Please let someone find me before it’s too late.
Smit barreled roughly through the brush and the bramble, heedless of branches and thorns. I felt them catch and prick at me but I didn’t care. The only thing I cared about at that moment was loosening his unnatural grip. I was certain I could outrun him if only I could get free. There wasn’t a chance that Smit was fast enough to catch me running.
Once we were clear of the brambles he threw me to the ground, so hard that all the breath flew out of my lungs. My brain screamed at me to Get up, now’s your chance, run, but my body wouldn’t respond, and a moment later Diederick Smit clubbed me in the head with one of his meaty fists. Stars exploded behind my eyes, and before I could think, he grabbed me again and tossed me over his shoulder as if I weighed nothing.
The boxing and the tossing made my head spin, and the burlap-scented air had me gagging. I coughed hard, felt the catch in my throat, and realized it would be incomprehensibly horrible to get sick while my head was still stuffed inside a bag.
I shook my head and shoulders from side to side in a panic, frantically trying to loosen the bag. My stomach bounced against Smit’s shoulder with every step.
He stopped, shifted me slightly, and growled, “Enough. Be still.”
I levered my knee into his chest with all the force I could muster—which, at the moment, was not very much. Still, it was enough to make him grunt and loosen his hold. I rolled gracelessly off his shoulder, crashing to the ground.
I scrabbled at the sack and managed to push it off just in time to see Diederick Smit’s fist descending toward my face. Blood spurted from my nose and I reeled in agony. Getting hit by a grown man in the full flush of anger was not like fighting with one of the village boys, with their small sharp fists and childish force. This was like being clobbered by a boulder, or kicked by a horse.
Tears sprang to my eyes and they made me angry, angry enough to want to fight back. It wasn’t the time to cry, to weep like some weak, gentle thing. I needed to survive, to get back to Katrina and Brom.
My fingers groped in the dirt for something, anything to defend myself from the monster looming above me, his fist descending again toward my face. He mashed my cheekbone and I screamed, or tried to, but the pain was so breathtaking only a pathetic little squeak emerged.
I felt a flood of shame. He was grinding me into nothing, pummeling my pride in my strength, my ability, my absolute certainty that I was a Van Brunt and therefore was invincible.
His fist raised again. His eyes shone mad blue against the canopy of autumn leaves above us. Saliva frothed at his lips.
He’s going to beat me to death, I thought dully. Whatever his original intent, it’s gone now. All he can think of is Justus, and how he’s decided his boy is gone because of me.
The sun dripped through the leaves. I smiled. I was glad I could at least see the sun, at the end.
I’m sorry, Oma, Opa.
My fingers closed around a stone. No, not a stone—a miracle.
I smashed it into Diederick Smit’s temple before I even realized what I’d done. My body had kept fighting without me.
Smit rolled to one side and I felt all the breath I’d been holding burst out of me, and with it came a surge of frantic energy. I managed to push myself halfway up and slam the rock, still gripped hard in my fist, into Smit’s face.
He made a choking noise, and his hands flailed out, trying to grab me, but I hit him again.
Somehow I was kneeling on his chest, pressing my knees down so he couldn’t breathe. It felt vaguely familiar, and I realized I’d done something similar to his son only a few days before. But this wasn’t some chance to humiliate a bully. It was my life at stake. My life, or his.
I pounded the rock into Diederick Smit’s face over and over. Over and over until I realized he wasn’t moving. I looked at the stone in my hand. It was coated in red slick fluid, and so was my skin. Diederick Smit was an unrecognizable mass of swollen, purpling flesh and blood. He was completely still.
I dropped the stone to the ground in horror and scrambled off him, breathing hard. Had I killed him?
I didn’t mean to.
What would happen if he was dead?
I didn’t mean to.
Would Sem Bakker arrest me? Would I be tried for murder?
(But I didn’t mean to I was only defending myself he was going to kill me it’s true it’s true you didn’t see his face he was going to kill me)
That’s right, he was going to kill me, he was either going to feed me to the monster in the woods or he was going to beat me until I couldn’t move any more just like I’ve done to him
(he isn’t moving oh god what have I done)
I needed to see if he was still breathing. I reached toward him, then pulled my hand back. No, I needed to get away, that’s what I needed to do. I needed to run before someone found evidence of my crime.
(but it isn’t a crime, you were only defending yourself, only keeping him from harming you)
Nobody will believe that. They’ll say there’s something wrong with you. Unnatural. And everyone will believe its true because they already think you’re unnatural, you’re a girl who wants to be a boy.
They’ll say you’re a witch. They’ll say you killed Diederick the same as you killed his son Justus.
(But Katrina saw, Katrina saw him grab me and take me away)
Everyone will whisper that it’s only the Van Tassels and the Van Brunts throwing their weight around again, they think they could do whatever they want and their grandchild is just the same, she’s nothing but a shameless witch.
“No, I’m not,” I said, but there was no one to comfort me, no one to tell me any different, and I was afraid.
I was afraid and I wasn’t supposed to be. Van Brunts weren’t supposed to be afraid. I was nothing but a disappointment to Brom, nothing but a scared little child who got taken when I was supposed to be a big brave boy like Bendix, like Brom’s first Ben.
Dimly I was aware that I’d staggered away from Diederick Smit’s body.
(Maybe he’s not dead maybe you should stop and see and make certain and then maybe you should run and get help no the only running you should be doing is away away AWAY before they find you and call you a murderer you’re a murderer what kind of person are you you’re a murderer)
I couldn’t run even though I wanted to, couldn’t force my body to move that fast. My right eye had swollen shut and sweat ran into the left eye. I could barely see, barely grasp where I was going, and knew only that it was essential for me to escape.
Brom. I needed Brom. Brom could fix it. Brom could fix everything.
No, he can’t. He can’t make a dead body go away. No one can do that except the monster in the woods, the one that makes flesh melt and bones soften, the one that’s hunting boys in the wood and you still don’t know why. All you’ve done since the beginning is run around in circles, get underfoot, accomplish nothing. Nobody needs you. Even Brom didn’t want you with him today.
(but if he’d taken me this wouldn’t have happened so who’s fault is it really)
Brom doesn’t need some small, pale imitation of Bendix. He wants the real Ben and you’ll never be it, you’ll never be good enough.
I grabbed my head and shook it from side to side, almost as if I could dislodge the poisonous thoughts embedded in my brain. Where were these coming from? Of course Brom didn’t think that. Of course Brom wanted me. He loved me the way I was, even if I wasn’t Bendix.
(But does he?)
“He does,” I said to the birds that fluttered onto high branches as I crashed past, to the chipmunks that scurried from me with acorn bounty swelling their cheeks.
I stumbled, almost blind, without any sense of the direction I moved in. All the trees appeared the same, the trees I knew so well, the forest I’d loved and played in since I was a small child.
Diederick Smit (Diederick Smit’s body you mean no don’t think that he might not be dead) was somewhere behind me, or perhaps to the side of me. I’d gone the wrong direction, that was certain. The farm wasn’t this way. If I kept walking I’d be in the part of the forest I wasn’t supposed to go.
That’s why William de Klerk went missing. He strayed from the path and forgot his bread crumbs. I wondered if I ought to keep going. I didn’t have any bread crumbs, either. Perhaps I should just sit down and wait for someone to find me, wait for Brom or the Horseman or even the monster in the woods, wait for someone to help me or scold me or change my fate.
Or maybe I ought to cross the border we were never supposed to cross and become part of the woods, fold myself into shadow, meld with the trees until my breath was only the rustle of wind in the leaves. And the Horseman would be part of me, too, because the woods were him and he was the woods, he was all that was beautiful and terrible in the world and I wanted to be beautiful and terrible, too.
I don’t know how long I wandered like that, half out of my mind and only vaguely aware of my surroundings. Suddenly I was aware of two things—the rumble of a horse’s hooves, far away, and that I could only hear the horse because everything else had gone silent.
I stilled, the reflexive freezing of a small animal scenting a predator, but it was too late. The monster was already there.